Ecosystem Services Charting a Path to Sustainability: Interdisciplinary Research Team Summaries (2012) / Chapter Skim
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IDR Team Summary 4: Design agricultural and aquacultural systems that provide food security while maintaining the full set of ecosystem services needed from landscapes and seascapes.
IDR Team Summary 4: Design agricultural and aquacultural systems that provide food security while maintaining the full set of ecosystem services needed from landscapes and seascapes.
Pages 31-46
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From page 31... ...
This presents a major challenge on several fronts: agroecology and crop production; maintenance of adequate flows and quality of freshwater, retention of nutrients, maintenance of soil quality, and conservation of living resources; and social distribution of benefits and costs. Food security is commonly interpreted as access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.
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From page 32... ...
In these conditions, it will be a challenge to provide food security to 9 billion people while reducing pressures on land, freshwater or fertilizer, decreasing net emissions of greenhouse gases from agriculture and freshwater pollution, increasing recharge of critical aquifers, moderating runoff and large floods, and building and conserving soil to sustain future food production. Key Questions • What matrix of farming systems are needed to meet dietary needs (both amount and nutrition)
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From page 33... ...
IDR TEAM MEMBERS -- GROUP 4A • Christopher B Craft, Indiana University • Jonathan A
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From page 34... ...
Williams, North Carolina State University IDR TEAM SUMMARY -- GROUP 4A Abby McBride, Science Writing Scholar Massachusetts Institute of Technology IDR Team 4A took on the challenge of developing an approach to feed nine billion people -- the estimated global population in 2050 -- while maintaining ecosystem services. Designing agricultural systems for food security is a many-faceted problem.
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From page 35... ...
We make food security less attainable by throwing away unused and past-expiration food, particularly meat. To avoid reinventing the wheel, IDR Team 4A reached a consensus to base further discussion on this set of five steps for achieving food security.
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From page 36... ...
(5) Stop Close Use Shift Diets Reduce Deforestation Yield Gaps Resources & Reduce Food More Biofuels Waste Ecosystem Services: Efficiently Carbon Sequestration ++ +, – + + Improved Water Quality + – ++ +/0 Soil Fertility + ++ + – Emission Reductions ++ – + +, – + Water Provisioning +, – – ++ + Biodiversity ++ – + Food Availability 0 + 0 + + FIGURE 1: Hypothetical impacts of the "five steps to achieving food security" upon selected ecosystem services.
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From page 37... ...
Moving Closer to Real-World Application The members of IDR Team 4A had established that the five-step plan could achieve food security while benefiting other ecosystem services. They had identified some of the actions and agents necessary to accomplish each step of the plan.
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From page 38... ...
Zondlo, Princeton University IDR SUMMARY -- GROUP 4B Robyn Abree, NAKFI Science Writing Scholar University of Georgia Statement of the Problem IDR Team 4B was asked to design agricultural and aquacultural systems that provide food security while maintaining the full set of ecosystem services needed from landscapes and seascapes. Instead, based on the group's unique specialties, it narrowed the challenge to studying ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes only, specifically designing solutions that cross the traditional urban-rural divide.
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From page 39... ...
The group agreed that vertical farms, which are essentially high rises with floors of fields that produce crops all year round, would also help them achieve a second goal: to prevent new conversion of forests, grasslands, and wetlands into prime agricultural land to sustain urban areas. The group also suggested provisions to reuse waste normally filtered out into urban fringe areas in order to power the new urban-agricultural food production systems.
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From page 40... ...
Most obviously, cities should designate certain areas of the city for food production only, and incorporate enough room for food production systems like vertical farms. Moreover, policy makers and architects should design systems that harness hydrologic power from wastewater facilities.
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From page 41... ...
Moreover, the group expects that recycling wastewater to power urbanagricultural food systems will cut down on water pollution. Instead of grey water and storm water from urban areas trickling out and polluting hinterlands and fringe areas, the water would be continuously cycled back to power the food production system.
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From page 42... ...
There is no doubt that Earth's already large population of some seven billion people will continue to grow at a rate that will create serious new demands on food production, as well as natural ecosystems. There will be significant challenges to feeding the growing population of the world, challenges made even more difficult because of the need to protect the natural systems important to humans and animals, often known as ecosystem services.
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From page 43... ...
For that reason, IDR Team 4C decided that the best way to tackle the problem of designing agricultural and aquaculture systems that provide food security while maintaining a full set of ecosystem services was to first, describe the current system and its benefits and failings, second, to determine what a desirable system would look like, and third, come up with tactics for potentially improved food production systems. The goal is a long way off, but assembling a base of knowledge and data is a practical start to the huge problem humans face.
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From page 44... ...
On a social and political level, education about food systems is extremely important so that producers and consumers can make more informed choices to help protect food production and understand the value of ecosystem services. Knowledge Gaps and Research Needed Acknowledging that human food production systems are a long way from a path to a sustainable production system to feed nine billion people, and that there is no current comprehensive plan to deal with the problem, IDR Team 4C took the approach of identifying important impediments to learning how to create a balance between food systems on multiple scales and natural ecosystems, and how those barriers could be incorporated into a design competition challenge with the hope of inspiring innovative solutions.
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From page 45... ...
There is not enough information in this area because technologies that produce data on ecosystem service losses are expensive and unavailable to people in many parts of the world. While feeding nine billion people, it will be important to measure and model the cumulative effects of agriculture and identify tradeoffs between food production and ecosystem services.
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From page 46... ...
The team acknowledged that this would be a costly, ambitious, and long-term endeavor, but one that could potentially provide a template as a global model for locally led and globally inspired sustainability, ultimately which would lead to a balance between food production and ecosystem services. The World and Food Ahead Although 21st century food production challenges will persist, especially in the face of climate change and population growth, IDR Team 4C believes that bringing together the best technology and collaborative agricultural research, global and local, will produce results that can be used around the world to promote sustainable food production and consumption from the kitchen table to the largest agro-industrial operations.
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